Riotguards:you can moan and groan that harry potter was not a girl but nothing should change how a writer makes their story, the same should be applied to video games (of course within moderation)

This argument doesn't work for games because books are authored by one person, SOMETIMES a couple more if they're really ambitious. And that author only has to get by their editor, who isn't there to alter their content so much as to make sure there aren't any glaring mistakes, contradictions, or major structural problems.

Games are designed by committees and teams, and (if they're doing their job right) the major aspects of the games are being run by focus groups to test reactions to find the right decisions to make. Genders, races, ages, sexualities, settings, mechanics, plot points time periods, sizes of teams, sizes of noses--all of these can be changed by focus groups. All for the purpose of pleasing demographics. Lara Croft didn't get to be in Tomb Raider because the creators thought she was an interesting and charismatic character. She got to be the main character of Tomb Raider because she had tits and they wanted to draw in the young boys.

Games aren't filled with white 30-something men with 5 o'clock shadow because every game dev happens to think that archetype serves as the best vessel for players to explore their world in. It's because they want to appeal to 18-25 year old white males, and they're convinced if they stray too far from that demographic they will lose them. They've seen it work in other games and have decided that is the cornerstone to success.

rosac:Resident Evil 4 does this- however it is explained in the plot- Leon is the operative sent in to get Ashley, Ashley is a frightened teenage girl with no prior combat experience. It is very damsel in distress-y, but I believe she can occasionally kill the enemies.

Thanks to a weird glitch. Oh, look children, a panty shot. Otherwise she's got to run and hide in a bin; she's complete powerless aside from cutscenes and special events.

I can't really name many, but I'm sure there are lots. You could probably argue that the Pyro from Team Fortress 2 is female (judging from the purse in their locker) but that's very subjective, and their play style is a lot more strategic than some of the other classes.

Spoiler if too long didn't watch.

Spoiler: Click to ViewPHA+U2VtaXByb3ZlbiB0byBiZSBnYXkgbWFsZS48L3A+

On another note, anyone see how half the games listed by....everyone, are made by Asian developers? I'm pretty sure this whole sexism thing is a mostly western problem (or at least, our type of sexism)

Games are designed by committees and teams, and (if they're doing their job right) the major aspects of the games are being run by focus groups to test reactions to find the right decisions to make. Genders, races, ages, sexualities, settings, mechanics, plot points time periods, sizes of teams, sizes of noses--all of these can be changed by focus groups. All for the purpose of pleasing demographics

by that logic books would also be targeting demographics to maximize sales with said demographic

games still require authors to be written by, should we deny a person(s) their freedom of expression because they might offend you or me?

if an artist draws a picture and it offends someone, does that mean the artist should account for anyone else who might become offended perhaps take away from quality and colours just to make sure

hell maybe Leonardo should have redone the entire Mona Lisa because it doesn't have a white man in it (and lets not forget every other variation of humans)

nothing is stopping you or anyone else from becoming a writer and making these badass stories for women

I'm curious as to why you think a handful of examples actually proves anything to the contrary. Especially examples with many people actively rebutting the concept in the first place. A good number of people dismissed it and at least one person called it insulting. But you yourself have made the claim that this scenario is problematic more than the sum total of times it was validated in all of your examples, so....

I don't mind playing with the trope now and then, but sometimes I just wanna hammer mooks, and go berserk in a game.

captcha: teflon president

I'm inclined to agree with that desire. Which is why I really prefer when they let you pick your playstyle. Sometimes it's just fun to be whatever the version of "warrior" is and just punch/stab/shoot/crush people.

Then again, what I really like is games that afford or encourage versatility, so you can bring the right tool for the right job or approach things different ways with different tools.

In "Blood 2: the Chosen" (the woefully inferior sequel to the totally awesome "Blood") you could play as 4 different characters who had different playstyles. The "heavy" (ie. totes around huge guns) was female, and the physically weak character who used mostly Magic was a guy, so I guess that's an example.